JAMMU:Today a massive protest dharna held at press club jammu by large numbers of Congress activist and youth of Gujjar and pahari community lead by General secretary Pradesh Congress committee Shahnawaz choudhary over non inclusion of Gojri and Pahari languages in school curriculum in Jammu Kashmir.
A large number of agrresive youth participated in protest holding play cards and chanting slogans *State government hai hai...Stop discrimination with gujjars and paharis..Include Gojri and pahari languages in school curriculum*
While addressing the protestors and media Shahnawaz choudhary lambasted the state government for ignoring the demand of inclusion of gojri and pahari languages in school curriculum . By welcoming the decision taken by state government in past, he said that When Kashmiri, Dogri and Bodhi languages have been introduced in School curriculum vide Order no.333 of Edu, dated.19-06-2017 and after that announcement made by CM Mehbooba Mufti in fourth Higher education council meeting held at Srinagar on 12-07-2017 directed officers of education and higher education department to include Punjabi subject in schools and colleges as well, the ignorance of Gojri & Pahari language to introduce in School curriculum up to 10th standard is the historic injustice with Major languages of State.
while speaking he said that he held a press conference in past and warned the State government to either fulfill this demand or face the consequences but government has ignored it completely. So now we are compelled to come on road to agitate. This is just a beginning and symbolic peaceful protest but the people of the both communities will aggressively start agitation across the state against this discrimination as, there is high anger among the masses. We will not stop until we get over due right, he added.
He said that there are about 20 lakh Gujjars who speak Gojri in Jammu and Kashmir, nearly four lakh non-Gujjars also speak Gojri besides about six lakh who speak it as a second language and besides that Jammu and Kashmir, “Gojri is spoken in 12 other states, including Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Rajasthan and Gujarat.” and same pahari language is also spoken by lakhs of people in Jammu Kashmir.These languages have there long history,culture, literature and hundreds of books and fulfill all the requisite criteria to be included in school curriculum . And these are actual nationalist people who lives on border and have always sacrificed there life for the country and given there blood for the nation and government deliberately attempting to ignore these communities which Will lead to dire consequences.
He warned the State government that we will continue our fight until government full fill our demands
Other prominent those where present where Ajaz chouhary Pyc state secretary, advocate sohaib mir,raqeeb Khan state vice president NSUI, saleem choudhary NSUI leader and Iqbal Gorsi and many other